Principal Network Automation Engineer

Overview

Design, build and operate AI agents that automate network operations, ITSM and lifecycle management across a large enterprise network estate, combining network automation with agentic AI.

What you'll do

• Design and build AI agents (using frameworks like Google ADK, LangChain, or similar) that interact with network infrastructure via Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers or custom tool integrations
• Write and iterate on system prompts/instructions that ground LLM behavior in real tool schemas, enforce anti-hallucination discipline, and avoid unsafe automation
• Integrate agents with ITSM platforms (ServiceNow) for incident, change, and CMDB data, and with network orchestration platforms (Itential) for workflow execution
• Build human-in-the-loop approval workflows for any agent capability that can modify production network state (e.g., plan → approve/reject → apply patterns), with strict identity/authorization guardrails
• Develop and maintain backend services (Python, FastAPI) exposing agents via REST/A2A/JSON-RPC protocols
• Containerize and deploy agents (Docker, Cloud Run, CI/CD via GitHub Actions) with per-agent configuration, environment isolation, and secrets management
• Instrument agents with observability (OpenTelemetry, structured logging, Cloud Logging) for tool I/O, session traces, and audit trails
• Collaborate with network engineering teams to translate operational runbooks (EOL/EOS tracking, device lifecycle, LAN/WAN/wireless health checks, config change validation) into agent capabilities
• Own RBAC/token propagation and security review for agent-to-tool and agent-to-user authentication
• Test agents against live/staging MCP servers, validate tool schemas, and iterate on prompt engineering based on real session traces
• Document architecture decisions, known gotchas, and operational runbooks for the agent fleet

What you'll need

• Overall 10 years of experience
• Strong Python skills; experience building async services (FastAPI, asyncio)
• Hands-on experience with LLM application development: prompt engineering, tool/function calling, RAG, multi-turn session/state management
• Familiarity with agent frameworks (Google ADK, LangChain, LangGraph, Semantic Kernel, or similar) and agent-to-agent/tool protocols (MCP, A2A)
• Networking fundamentals: Cisco IOS/IOS-XE, LAN/WAN/wireless architecture, routing, switching, firewalls
• Experience with ITSM tooling (ServiceNow) and network orchestration platforms (Itential, NSO, or similar)
• Docker containerization and CI/CD pipeline experience (GitHub Actions or equivalent)
• Cloud platform experience (GCP preferred: Vertex AI, Cloud Run, BigQuery, Secret Manager)
• Strong understanding of security practices for automation that can modify production infrastructure (least privilege, approval gating, audit logging)

Nice to have

• Experience with LiteLLM or multi-provider LLM routing/fallback strategies
• Familiarity with Itential Automation Platform / Operations Manager workflows
• Experience with vector search / RAG pipelines (Vertex AI Search, embeddings, citation grounding)
• Background in network automation scripting (Netmiko, NAPALM, Genie/pyATS, Ansible)
• Experience designing safety guardrails for write-capable AI agents (change management, approval workflows)
• Exposure to OpenTelemetry/observability tooling and FinOps/cost tracking for LLM usage